


Harry Sullivan and the Road Trip of Doom

by nostalgia



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Female Doctor (Doctor Who), Gen, Humor, Road Trip, girl!doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8066716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgia/pseuds/nostalgia
Summary: Harry gets an unexpected visit from the Doctor.





	

Harry looked up from his newspaper when the doorbell rang. “I'll get that, dear,” he called to his wife as he put on his tweed slippers. He buttoned his cardigan in case it was cold outside and headed to the door.

Harry had been through a lot of strange adventures in his youth, and as such he kept the outside door locked at all times, in case of... well, just in case. He undid the lock and opened the door to find a strange woman on the doorstep.

“Harry Sullivan!” she said, with obvious joy.

Harry was perplexed. “Yes? Do I know you?”

“Harry, it's me!”

He looked her closely. She was tall, middle-aged, badly-dressed, and grinning. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. 

He shook his head. “Sorry, I'm not sure I -”

The woman's smile slipped from her face. “Have you forgotten me already? Don't you remember the Zygons, and the Cybermen, and the thing that looked a bit like green bubble-wrap?”

“Steady on,” said Harry, quickly, “that's all under the Official Secrets Act, you can't just -”

“You _do_ remember!”

“Of course I do, but -”

“Good! Look, I need to borrow you for a few hours. Nothing dangerous, I just need a lift to Wales.”

“Wales,” repeated Harry, rather weakly. This was all quite beyond him.

“I left the TARDIS there and... well, it's a long story, I'll tell you about it on the way.”

He stared at the woman. Something about her was nagging at the back of his brain, but he still couldn't put a name to her face. “The TARDIS?” he asked. “Do you know the Doctor?”

“I _am_ the Doctor!”

“No,” said Harry, shaking his head, “the Doctor is...” His brain caught up with his mouth. “...an alien who can change his entire body and personality by a process of regeneration.” 

The woman - the Doctor - nodded.

Harry touched the door-frame for support. “I say, this is a turn-up for the books.”

“So,” said the Doctor, “can you drive me to Wales or not?”

“My wife's cooking dinner and the children will be home soon. I can't just drop everything and go on a road-trip.”

“Why not?” asked the Doctor, obviously confused. 

Harry sighed. “If it was a matter of national security...” he began.

“It is,” said the Doctor.

“Really?”

“It could be.”

Harry glanced back into the house. He could smell roast potatoes. He loved roast potatoes. He didn't want to get dragged into the Doctor's orbit again, that was a dangerous place full of monsters and aliens and getting lost in time and space. 

The Doctor looked at him expectantly.

“I'll get my coat,” he said, admitting defeat.

 

“Don't worry about that,” said the Doctor as Harry unfolded a map, “I have an excellent sense of direction.”

Harry doubted that, and merely nodded as he consulted the map for the best route to Wales.

“I'm serious,” said the Doctor, “I never get lost. Other people may not know where I am, and I might not always know where the TARDIS is, but I always know where _I_ am. It's a gift, I suppose.”

“If we take the M4, we can be there in a few hours,” said Harry, folding the map neatly and tucking it back into the glove compartment, which was a little awkward because he had to lean past the Doctor to do that, and she was currently a woman and Harry had to admit that never been all that good at women. He found them slightly baffling, all told.

The Doctor waved through the car window at Harry's wife, who was standing on the doorstep with an apron and a weak excuse about national security. Still, she waved back, which was probably a good sign.

“Was it difficult to adapt to being on Earth with all your days in chronological order?” asked the Doctor as the car pulled out of the driveway onto the street. 

“No,” said Harry, truthfully. 

“Really?” The Doctor sounded surprised. “It's just that sometimes people spend the rest of their lives trying to get back to me and my adventurous lifestyle.”

Harry shrugged. “Mostly I was just happy to get home in one piece.”

“Oh,” said the Doctor. “I'm not disappointed,” she went on, “it's good that I didn't ruin your life.” She looked around. “Hey, did you bring anything to eat?”

“Should I have?”

“It's fine,” she said, “I probably won't starve before we get there.

There was something Harry quite wanted to know. “Can I ask a question?” he ventured.

“Of course you can.”

“What happened to _my_ Doctor?” He glanced at the woman in the passenger seat. “I mean, you can only change your appearance when you die, isn't that right?”

The Doctor was silent for a moment, and then she said “He fell off a radio telescope.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “And then he turned into you?”

“That was ages ago,” she said. “I've regenerated lots of times since then. The one after your one was beige and liked cricket. I think you'd have got on really well with him, actually.”

“I see.”

“I regenerated not long ago,” she continued. “I was Scottish until quite recently.”

Harry frowned. “I thought you were an alien?”

“There's nothing wrong with an alien being Scottish,” said the Doctor, wearily. “I usually sound English, but you didn't think I was actually from England, did you?”

“Of course not,” said Harry, who had never really given the matter much thought.

“I had very good eyebrows when I was Scottish,” she added. “Possibly the best eyebrows I've ever had.” She lapsed into a moody silence and Harry tried to decide if he was supposed to distract her from it.

“How did the TARDIS get to Wales?” he asked eventually.

“I was at a hen night,” said the Doctor.

“A hen night?”

“It's like a stag night, but for women.”

“I know what a hen night is, Doctor. I'm just surprised that you went to one.”

“A friend of mine was getting married, and I'm a woman and I have a time-machine so I thought, you know, what the hell. Actually,” she confided, “it was a bit disappointing. I thought the stripper might be an alien, but he wasn't.”

Harry blushed at the thought of people taking their clothes off. 

“Anyway,” the Doctor continued, “it was an experience.”

“And the TARDIS..?”

“Well, there's a thing called the Hostile Action Displacement System, which moves the TARDIS away from danger, which when you think about it isn't very helpful at all if you're still in danger and your ship's abandoned you.”

“I see,” said Harry, who didn't.

“There was singing,” said the Doctor, “and a bit of drunken vomiting. Nothing I'd call dangerous, but you know what TARDISes are like. So she went off in a huff to Cardiff city centre.”

“I'm sure it could have happened to anyone,” said Harry, generously.

“I hope she can forgive me,” said the Doctor, sounding worried.

“Of course she will, old-” Harry stopped speaking suddenly.

The Doctor looked across at him. “Were you about to call me 'old girl'?” she asked, dangerously.

“No?”

“I think you were.”

“I wasn't,” he lied.

“Because if you call me that, I might have to -”

“It never even crossed my mind,” said Harry. 

“Good.”

Harry broke the resulting uncomfortable silence by saying, “Sarah Jane never liked it when I called her that.”

“No, she didn't,” agreed the Doctor. 

“I used to think I might end up married to her,” said Harry, not even a bit wistfully.

The Doctor stared at him. “To Sarah Jane? You? Seriously?”

“I don't see what's so unlikely about that,” said Harry, offended. “I thought we would have made a rather handsome couple.”

“Harry,” said the Doctor, with obvious care, “she's very modern, and you're quite... old-fashioned. I don't think it would have worked.”

“I'm not old-fashioned!” he protested.

“Of course not,” said the Doctor unconvincingly, “but it still wouldn't have worked out. Anyway, you've got that lovely wife who probably reminds you slightly of your mother, and she obviously doesn't have any objections to cardigans and being called old girl.”

He wasn't sure if he was being insulted, so he just said, “She's a good egg.”

“I'm sure she is.” The Doctor opened the glove compartment and took out the road map. “Are we nearly there yet?” she asked, turning it this way and that. 

“I thought you had an excellent sense of direction?” he reminded her.

“Direction, yes. Distance, no.”

Harry was reminded of weekend trips to the coast when his children were younger and less patient. “We'll get there when we get there,” he told the alien.

“Oh.” The Doctor put the map back and turned to stare out of the window. “Sorry,” she said, “I'm just not very good with vehicles that don't go through the time vortex.”

“What about Bessie?”

The Doctor shrugged. “She was different. She understood me.”

Harry wasn't sure how a car could understand someone, but he didn't want to upset the Doctor by saying so out loud. He left her to her thoughts and turned on the radio.

 

The Doctor was sleeping when they reached the centre of Cardiff. Harry wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch her to wake her, so he settled for clearing his throat loudly.

“Are we there yet?” asked the Doctor as she jolted awake. She looked around, saw the TARDIS outside, and fumbled with her seatbelt excitedly. “How do these things unfasten?”

Harry reached over and clicked the seatbelt open for her. “I told you we'd get here eventually.”

The Doctor opened the door and practically bounced out of the car to her waiting TARDIS. Harry followed her out and watched as she examined the outside of the ship for any damage.

“Thanks, Harry,” said the Doctor, “I couldn't have done this without you.” She shook his hand enthusiastically. “I can take you home in the TARDIS, save you driving back on your own.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Harry, who was determined not to get lost in time and space when he could get home safely on his own. “I wouldn't want to get in the way.”

“It's no trouble,” she insisted. “It's the least I can do.”

Harry tried to think of a polite way to tell the Doctor that he didn't trust her ability to get him back to London on time and in the right century. The TARDIS wasn't the most reliable method of transport, but it seemed rude to draw attention to this fact. “I'll be fine,” he said, diplomatically.

“Well, if you're sure.” The Doctor looked at him for a moment and then suddenly hugged him. 

Harry stood awkwardly as she embraced him, trying not to think about the curves of her body. He tried not to blush, but he could feel his cheeks burning.

Finally the Doctor released him. “It was good to see you again,” she said, unlocking the door of her TARDIS. 

Harry nodded and waved, then turned back to his car as the ship dematerialised. He had a long drive ahead of him, but he was grateful to be making the journey on four wheels instead of in the TARDIS. He got into the driver's seat, started the engine, and turned the car towards home.


End file.
